


Please Just Open Your Eyes

by brennalee6295



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Anorexia, Body Image, Bulimia, Depression, Eating Disorder, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, F/M, Hospital, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, I hate myself, Illness, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Medical stuff, Pain, Patrick has an eating disorder, Peterick, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Sickfic, Weight, Weight Issues, help needed, sick, sick patrick, will someone please fucking help patrick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:12:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4967572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brennalee6295/pseuds/brennalee6295
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick Stump has always been able to find the good in everyone and everything, he just forgets to do the same to himself. Some bad thoughts lead to a broken person that needs someone to help open his eyes to the beauty that was always there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They had been on tour for AB/AP for nearly a month before something started to change inside Patrick. No one had seen it coming, I mean for christ sakes, the man was Patrick freaking Stump they were talking about. Everyone was sitting around on the tour bus, well minus Joe who was doing God knows what with Wiz on his own bus. Pete was sitting a little too close to Patrick but years of the same shit from him had conditioned Patrick to Pete’s lack of personal space problem. 

“I’m super hungry, we totally need to get some pizza before the show,” Pete said to no one in particular.

“Yeah, I could eat, too,” Patrick replied nonchalantly and without a second thought.

“Me three,” Andy piped in.

“It’s settled then, three pies, one vegan, of course, and we are all happy!” Pete pulled out his phone and place the order.

Patrick, still sitting close to Pete was on his computer messing with his garageband trying to figure out the best way to transition from the chorus to the next verse of a song he was working on. Pete leaned over after he was done on the phone and laid his head on Patrick’s shoulder, then side-hugged him and sighed into his neck.

“What is this for?” Patrick asked curiously.

“I don’t know, I just love you, ‘Trick, and I don’t say that nearly as often as I should,” Pete smiled. Patrick blushed, he never could take a compliment very well and this was no exception. However, the blush expanded as he felt a little twinge in his stomach as he noticed that Pete’s hand was still lingering over his belly. Its not that he was bothered by his stomach, he has always had one, even after his weight loss during the hiatus, but for some reason Pete’s sudden relaxation on his ~~gut~~ stomach felt like a giant brick that wouldn’t leave. Patrick shifted uncomfortably under the weight.

“What’s the matter?”

“um… well… you’re a little close to me that’s all” Patrick tried deflecting the awkwardness of the situation by standing up.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize it bothered you that much.” Pete looked down at his hands a little defeated. Now Patrick felt bad. “It’s not that, sorry, I'm just hot, I guess I needed my space.” After things normalized a little bit and everyone settled down in their prospective hobbies, the pizzas arrive. Pete gets up and pays for the pies before handing everyone their own pizza. Patrick hadn't realized that Pete ordered largest size, which is weird that it bothers him so much now, because it has never bothered him before. He decides that he’ll just eat a couple of slices and leave his leftovers for Joe or himself later. They put a movie on and just sit back and chill with each other. About an hour into the movie and Andy is yelling at the screen about some stupid decisions a character has made when Patrick looks down at his pizza box. 

Gone. 

All of it. 

The entire pizza is gone. ~~You fucked up you~~. ~~You fucked up~~. ~~You are a fuck up~~. Those three sentences are on repeat in Patrick’s brain and he doesn’t know why. ~~Its because you are a fat ass~~. ~~Has it taken you that long to realize this~~? Holy shit. They’re right. The voices in his head usually pick at some poor musical choice or decision he has made, but now they seem to have switched their focus onto his image. Fat. Patrick grabs at his stomach, feeling the excess fat and weight that he has been carrying around. Okay. This is fixable Patrick thinks to himself. I’ll just not eat anything else today and maybe go for a walk later. Yeah, that will work. He relaxes a little.

The next thing he knows is they’re being called to the stage to get ready for their show that night. Which turned out to be amazing! Better than amazing, it was the best show they have put on all summer and they still have two more months to go! Patrick was on a high when he got back to the bus to take a shower and cool off before heading to the usual afterparty at the venue. Everyone else had either already showered and changed or just went to the party sweaty by the time Patrick gets there, so he has the entire place to himself, which is nice for a change. He strips down to his boxers and heads towards the bathroom not needing to cover up like he usually does. Wait. Patrick had just passed by a full length mirror set up on the door of the bathroom when he does a double take. Is that really him? ~~Of course it is, this is what I’ve been trying to tell you~~. He hadn’t really ever taken notice of himself like this since after the hiatus and it was scary. He was right back where he was before. He was the Patrick of 2008. He had never wanted to get there again and here he is. No, wait, his mind must just be playing tricks on him. Yeah. that’s what is going on here. He reserves himself that he is just thinking way too much into this and heads into the shower. When he gets out and dries off he takes another glance at the mirror. Time hasn’t changed the image and now the pizza from this afternoon is bubbling up in his mind. He feels horrible and disgusted with himself. ~~Disgusting~~. Once again he grabs at his flaws. The flab around his hips, the extra give his chest gives, the double chin that is just barely visible but still there. Just to make sure he isn’t lying to himself he pulls up his computer and types his name into the Google search bar.

The first few sites and images are just him with the band and about Fall Out Boy. Then he decides to refine his search and types in ‘Patrick Stump + weight’. There it is. The Comments. Anywhere from _Patrick looks so good now that he has some more meat on his bones,_ to, _I can’t believe Patrick has gained back all the weight he lost._ _He was my inspiration, now he is exactly what I don’t want to happen to myself_. He believes it. They were all right. He HAD gained the weight back and let down so many of his fans. He just didn’t understand why no one had said anything to his face. I mean, he understood that his fans were too nice to say anything straight to his face, but what about Elisa and Pete. Where was Andy and Joe telling him to put down the third pizza slice? ~~Too embarrassed to say anything to your fat face~~.

Fuck.

Okay.

He could fix this. All he needs is a plan. So after finally putting clothes on and calming himself down enough he set out to make a plan to fix it.

1000 calories. 1000 calories and a 2 mile run everyday. He knew that 1000 calories was pushing it a little bit. He has heard all the data that no one should eat less than 1200 calories a day, but the extra 200 calories less just meant faster results. If he was going to get back to his regular, and ideal weight by the end of the tour, then the needed quick results. Two months was a short time.

His first step was to weigh himself everyday and make a goal of 1 pound a day. Lose 1 pound and then he could reevaluate his situation. After writing all of this down in his newly deemed ‘weigh loss journal’ on his computer, he set out to weigh himself for the first day. No. That can’t be right. ~~Scales don’t lie~~. Now he was way more scared than before.

180.

He was only 5’4 for fuck’s sake.

‘Not again’ was the only thing running though his mind. He now has actual confirmation that he is exactly the 2008 forbidden version of himself. This realization makes his goals even more necessary. A giant rush of terror sets into his bones that he feels wont go away until he has lost the weight. He can’t breath. What if he can’t ever breath again. He felt himself get hot all over and sweaty again. Panic attack. He is having a panic attack. Where was his ~~fat induced~~ inhaler? As soon as he steps off the scale to find the inhaler that calms him down somewhat effectively, his phone rings with Pete wondering where he is and why he isn’t at the party. Once again he collects himself, smiles at the ~~lying~~ mirror, and places his fedora on his head to finally be ready to face his friends for the night.

 


	2. Chapter 2

One week and he had messed up nearly every day. It was either the temptation to eat what everyone else was eating or the weird looks that Pete would give him when he denied food or ate a salad instead. He would ~~weakly and cowardly~~ cave in and ruin his plan. A few days he couldn’t even get in his 2 mile run. ~~Lazy~~. There were some results. He had lost a few pounds. 178. Not following his original plan, but still progress. Patrick just realized he just needed to be stronger. So he gave himself incentives. If he could go the whole day with just under 1000 calories, then he could hang out with the guys after the shows. If he couldn’t, then he would spend the rest of the night doing sit-ups, crunches, lunges, and pushups to make up for the extra calories. This would HAVE to work. 

Pete started to notice the changes in Patrick’s mood after the first few days into the new regime. The weird looks Patrick gave himself in the mirror were the first sign. Before he would simply look into the mirror to adjust his hat or fix his hair, now he either seemed to avoid it altogether or spend three times as long looking into it. Pete could only guess what was going on in the little man’s head but he didn’t think it was any thing good. He also noticed Patrick took to grabbing at himself whenever he was eating, which, come to think of it, had been a lot less recently. Pete decided he needed to talk to patrick about this. Patrick needed to understand that the was loved no matter what size or shape he is. He waited until after Patrick was done Face-timing Elisa and Declan to confront him.

“Bye guys! I love you.” Patrick smiles and waves at the screen before shutting his computer down. He walks over to the fridge to grab a bottle of water where pete is standing awkwardly in the doorway. 

“Hey ‘Trick? I was wondering, if maybe we could talk?”

“Sure whats this about?” Patrick sips on his water.

“You know I love you like a brother right? And I would do anything for you right?”

“Of course. Me too, bro.”

“Okay, so don’t be mad at me when I say this but…” Pete stops himself. He looks at Patrick, like really looks at him. Hard. He doesn’t seem unhappy. He seems quite okay. Maybe he was overreacting. He doesn’t want to make Patrick angry at him and he feels that pointing out a sore subject like his weight would do that. So he decides against it. “… that fedora makes you look like a nerd.”

“Oh you’re going to get it!” Patrick sets his water down and chases Pete into the back room where there is a queen bed that he tackles him on. Until he realizes that he is probably crushing Pete. He stands up rather abruptly and crosses his arms in front of his fat chest. “Sorry,” he says a little ashamed that he could forget about his weight for even a couple of seconds. Pete, being the oblivious man that he is, doesn’t notice that Patrick is suddenly self-conscious and just thinks he is apologizing for tackling him, not the whole laying on him thing. “Dude, I brought it upon myself,” he says chuckling. “Yeah, you kinda did,” Patrick kinda smiles at the fact that, for one, Pete did deserve it, and for another that Pete didn’t notice how he felt. 

They still had about two more hours before the show starts and like four more before he had to be on stage. Patrick decides that this is a good time to go for a run, after Pete is back in the bunk. He doesn’t know why he is hiding the weight loss thing from everyone. It’s not like they would stop him and tell him not to, because he is just being healthy and thats what healthy people do. When he gets back, he is exhausted and caked in sweat. He notices that they ordered pizza again while he was gone and all three of them were chowing down like nobody’s business. “You want a slice bro?” Joe says with a giant mouth full of ~~fattening~~ dough.

“Or three, you know Patrick, dude” Pete says laughing.

Ouch. That hurt. ~~Its not like they don't know you’re a fat ass~~.

“Um nah, its okay. I ate a big lunch ( ~~lie~~ ), I think I’ll skip it this time.” That was the first time he did it. Skipped a meal. He felt empowered. And he didn’t even eat anything after the concert. His journal says he only ate 700 calories that day. It becomes his new goal. 700. 

He manages five whole days sticking to his new diet and two mile run regimen. It’s working. All he has to do is eat at least half at every meal and no one gives him a second glance. An apple for breakfast (80 calories). A salad for lunch (300 calories) and half of what he would normally eat at dinner (320 calories). The scale says 170. He did it, ten pounds! He decides he can take a glance at what his hard work has produced so he turns towards the mirror in the bathroom of the hotel they were in that day and pulls up his shirt a little bit. It can’t be. He looks even bigger. ~~Bloated and huge~~. He quickly pulls his shirt down and slides his back against door until he is in a slump on the floor. He pulls his shirt up again only this time with the way he is sitting his ~~giant belly~~ stomach is scrunched up. ~~It’s only showing what’s really there, all your fat rolls~~. He starts to pull at them, squeeze, and pinch them. Soon his stomach is red and splotchy and there are silent tears rolling down his cheeks. Slowly standing up, he vows to lose another ten by next week.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I hope you guys like this and comments and kudos are always appreciated! Like you guys freakin make my day when I see them :) Also please seek help if you are going through this yourself. It sucks, I know, but you are strong and beautiful no matter what.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

****Another week and the scale says another ten pounds. Patrick is proud. Like genuinely proud of how well he is at controlling his impulses. He can’t remember the last time he was doing this well with dieting. Every day he weighs himself and the number keeps inching down, a little too slowly for Patrick’s liking, but still down. A few days he even tries skipping the meal entirely and it is kind of hit or miss. If he skips breakfast, no one really notices considering they are either in their separate hotel rooms or the fact that Patrick usually doesn’t get up until lunch time anyways. Which means that lunch was almost impossible to skip. It was the usual get together with band “Family Time” that Pete so desperately loves. So with lunch a no-go that meant dinner, his usual only “real” meal of the day to skip. Patrick was actually happy about that though. Once he got over the hunger pains, he manages to dismiss his urges to eat something and usually grabs a tea (with a little sweetener to help curb his appetite even more). He finds that while he is lying in his bunk he feels great! High even! It’s a feeling of accomplishment that is more satisfying than getting the right sound to come out of his songs. He runs off that feeling until lunch the next day. It keeps him going. Keeps him on track. Focused.

Its around 12 in the afternoon (Patrick got up a little earlier to go for an early run) when Patrick gets the call from Pete who is out and about in whatever town they were in to meet him at a burger restaurant. 

“Um… sorry dude, you caught me just after I ate,” Patrick thinks he is being clever but Pete is having none of it.

“No. I didn’t.”

“Yes you did. And if you didn’t how would you even know?” Patrick says a little too defensively.

“I saw you go for your run earlier today and you must have just gotten back because you are still breathing heavy which means you are, in fact, just getting back.”

Shit. He is cornered. He decides that he will just have to go and order a salad or something and try to skip dinner again tonight.

“Alright you got me.” Patrick thinks quickly and adds, “I just didn’t want to sit around in some dumpy place to eat burgers with a freak with blonde hair.” Patrick smiles at the smooth lie he just came up with. He was getting better at this.

“Freak? Dude at least I can be seen in public without a hat, you doofus,” Pete chuckles and then quickly tells him the place to be.”

Patrick arrives about 30 minutes later showered and polished. The waitress hands him his menu and asks what he wants to drink. “Just water please. Oh, and can I have lemon, too?” She nods and Patrick looks up to Pete sitting across the booth from him. “What are you getting?”

“Oh dude, that guacamole burger with extra guac is calling my name!” Pete says pointing to it on the menu for Patrick to see. He does the math almost automatically in his head. 400 at least of the burger alone, 200 for the bun, 250 for the regular guac, and another 125 for the extra, plus fries which could easily be 300 and not including the extras it is at least be 1400 calories. Unacceptable. Patrick starts to panic internally. He can’t do this. Yes he can. Take a breath and just look at the salads.

“I wanna eat something light today, you know, for my voice. Today’s one of those days that I feel like food is going to effect it,” Patrick frowns to add a little more substance to the lie. “This chicken salad looks good to me!” ( ~~Dressing on the side of course~~.) He looks up to see Pete shaking his head with a smirk.

“Oh no you don’t. This place is known for burgers and I’ll be fucked if you don’t get one. Come one I know you are watching what you eat now a days, but everyone can have a cheat day once in awhile.” He’s right. ~~No he’s not~~. I’ve been so well I deserve a little treat. ~~You are going to ruin all of your hard work!~~   No I’m not. One burger isn’t going to kill me. ~~We’ll see about that~~. 

“Okay, you got me. But no frilly burger, just cheese, lettuce, and tomato.”

“Alright!”

The two place their order and go on talking about how well the shows have been, the crazy things that fans have done in their meet and greet photos, and how high Joe gets with Wiz all the time. Their food comes, so they eat and talk until they are ready for the check. That’s when it hits him.

“My favorite has got to be the girl with the TMNT headbands. She was so cool to have thought about what we might have liked to do. And that hug you gave her when she cried a little handing you that letter she wrote. We should have taped that! What did it say anyways?” Pete was rambling now.

“Oh yea,” Patrick remembers, “It was about how she has struggled with an eating disorder for a few years and she tried to commit suicide, but she was listening to ‘What a Catch’ and it stopped her from cutting any deeper.”

“Heavy stuff, heavy stuff. I never take for granted what we are to some of these kids.”

Patrick was too deep into thought to reply to Pete and the waitress had just come with the bill so it gave him some time to think. Did he have an eating disorder? ~~It’s not an eating disorder if you are still fat~~. Exactly, he was just trying to lose weight, he still had things under control. Control. He looks down at his ~~empty~~ plate. The color drains from his face. What has he done?

Shit.

Shit.

SHIT.

“You ready ‘Trick?” Pete says after flirting innocently with the cute waitress and giving her a, well earned, giant tip. 

“Yea, just need to get back to the bus is all, I need to start warming up for the concert.” The whole walk back Patrick mind was running miles around him. Counting and re-counting how many calories he had ~~greedily~~ consumed. He had to get rid of it. He had to. He owed it to himself and his progress. He owed it to his fans. He knew what he was going to do. He just had to make sure Pete didn’t hear it. That was easy, just go to Joe and Andy’s bus. They were already at the venue getting ready themselves by now. He was still calculating how exactly to do it by the time they reached the buses. “I think I left my headphones in the other bus, I’ll meet you in the dressing room, okay, Pete?”

“Sure thing. See you there!”

Patrick hastily types in the code to the door, runs up the steps and immediately into the tiny bathroom. He squats down so he is haunched on his feet and leans forward. Okay. I can do this. Two fingers enough? He slowly draws his fingers to his mouth and swallows a little spit that had collected there. Okay just do it! Do it before you talk yourself out of it! Alright. He opens his mouth and slides his fingers in. He goes until he can feel the back of his throat, then he goes further. Found it. His stomach lurches and he barley has time to remove his hand before the contents of his stomach is being thrown into the bowl. Not enough. He goes at it again. And again. Until he can’t distinguish what exactly was coming out of his mouth, just as long as it was gone. When he thinks he has done enough he stands up. A little too quickly. He sways a little and sees a couple little black dots. He blinks to make them go away. As he is washing his hands he hears the door to the bus open.

“Hey Trick! I found them, they were on your bunk! Where are you?”

Patrick quickly washes his hands but doesn’t have time to flush before Pete is opening the door to the bathroom. Pete smells it before he even looks into the bowl. “Oh dude, you alright!?!”

Patrick has to think fast, “I think I have a bug or something, I got really nauseous and just couldn’t keep the food down.”

“Oh man. Well do you think you will be okay to perform tonight?”

“Oh yea, I can get past the nausea. And I don’t think that there is anything more for me to puke.”

“I mean, if your okay then,” Pete looks worryingly at his best friend.

“Yea, I’ll be alright,” Patrick smiles to add effect.

“Okay well we are waiting for you in the dressing room.” With that, Pete pats Trick on the shoulder and walks off towards the venue. That was close. Almost too close. But at least he did it! He didn’t think he could and now he knows that even if he does stumble fuck up a little bit, he can easily fix his mistake. This will make his plan foolproof! 

Patrick sang horribly that night. He knows the band and crew knows because Pete already told everyone about him being sick. They all give him a pitiful look and make sure to keep their distance but no one blames him for the shitty performance, had just gotten sick. He is doing this for his fans, this weight loss, so that means he can’t let them down in the process. He makes another vow with himself that he will never purge that close to a show again. At least 4 hours in-between to assure full recovery. Patrick can’t let them down in two ways. And another plus to being “sick” is that he can use that excuse all week to avoid eating or getting caught purging when he does eat.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this is really short, Uni is kinda catching up to me right now and I am just trying not to drown. I promise to make longer chapters in the future. Please stick with me... your support keeps me writing. :)

He goes on like this for awhile. But progress starts to slow down. At first he was losing weight all the time, now it was a few days before even half a pound was shed. He didn’t understand it, so he googled weight-loss facts and found his answer. The heavier you are, the quicker you lose weight. He had lost about 30 pounds before the plateau happened. 

Patrick wasn’t stupid either, he could see his progress. Clothes felt baggier on him, he could run for longer distances, and people were nonstop complimenting him on his healthier look. Hell even Pete said something about his look, which, that had kinda stung though. An innocent “Hey Patrick, looking a lot healthier these days!” had made Patrick realize that he had in fact been what he feared, and his best friend knew it. It was a confirmation that he was indeed fat. Pete knew he was fat. This realization had only pushed him further. 

If not to show Pete that he was not going to be fat anymore, then to prove to himself that he would never be chubby, fat, large, or any other variation of the sort. He needed to figure out a way to get past this plateau, he was no where close to where he wanted to be in terms of looks and numbers. 149 was nice, but 130 was better. 

The problem was he was already eating as little as possible without causing any suspicion. He couldn’t skip anymore meals without raising some red flags. Patrick thought back to the day he went out to dinner with Pete in the diner. He thought how easy it was to just reverse the calories he had consumed by simply getting rid of them. His fingers itched right now, just thinking about what he had had for lunch; a bowl of soup (under 150 calories). 

He looks up from his computer and takes in his surroundings. They were on the bus on the way to some town in Texas for a show tonight. He checked his watch to make sure he had enough time to recover his throat, it was only 3:00 and the show wasn’t until 9:00, plenty of time. Next he had to figure out where Pete was. He knew he was on their bus and he wasn't in the living room so that meant either the bunks or the back bedroom. 

“Pete?” No answer. He gets up and walks to their bunks and sees Pete’s curtain pulled shut. Patrick tugs it open just a little, enough to see that Pete is sleeping with his headphones in. Perfect. He gently closes the curtain and heads into bathroom. 

10 minutes later he was finished and sipping on some green tea to help sooth his throat.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for being late, but here is a new chapter, I am going to post a much longer one soon, maybe even two.

Patrick looked up into the mirror that hung in the bathroom of whatever fucking hotel they were in that night.

 

A few days in-between concerts usually meant family time, but for Patrick, it only meant alone time. Elisa and Declan were supposed to be coming in but something had happened with Elisa’s mother and he told her that there would be another time when she could come out and visit. Her mother was more important than an impromptu visit with him.

 

~~He wasn’t worth it anyways. She is better off without him~~.

 

He did miss her and especially his son more than anything right now.

 

The reflection that looked back at Patrick showed a very different Patrick than the one she was used to as well. When he left for tour he was a happy, well fed man with not a worry in the world. How did this happen so quickly? His cheeks weren’t necessarily hollow, but they weren't full anymore. His high cheek bones could cut granite. Coupled with the new bony features of his face are the dark bags under his eyes.

 

It had been two weeks since he discovered the miracle of throwing up what little he consumed and it had taken a toll on his body.

 

His sleeping schedule was all fucked up, too. He was either so tired he didn’t even get out of bed for his almost religious 4 mile run in the mornings (he had made it longer to quicken the results even more) or he was thinking so much about numbers and scales and concerts and eating enough to not pass out but not enough to make him gain any weight that he couldn’t fall asleep.

 

He was standing with a towel wrapped around his waist after he had taken a shower. The hotel had a scale tucked away in the corner that was taunting him. He hadn’t eaten at all yesterday and this morning his day was starting to look like it was turning into the same pattern.

 

He drops his towel and steps on the scale.

 

Finally 127.

 

He had surpassed his goal! He didn’t know how to feel about this; relieved, happy, scared? He knew he was at the weight he was when he graduated high school. He _never_ thought he would make it there again.

 

Patrick looks back up from the celebratory numbers and meets his own eyes in the mirror. Then they travel down his body. Collarbone, ribs, hips, all visible, yet not grossly so, just right that said he was healthy. ~~If healthy meant being dizzy overtime he stood up~~.

 

Now he could finally stop his diet!

 

Well, he could stop throwing up, and maybe run a little less in the mornings. But he would keep up with eating less than he used to, to maintain his current weight.


	6. Chapter 6

Running less had turned out to be harder than he imagined. He would set out to do only one mile, and then when that was done, he would have this urge in the back of his mind that he was going to gain back all the weight if he stopped. He couldn’t do that, obviously, so he would do his normal two and half miles just to feel relaxed and not anxious. 

120 punds.

 

As it turns out, not throwing up after he ate was also, almost, impossible. Any food in his stomach felt like a lead weight and it made him nauseous and over-full. He justified it by eating a little more, but that just made him feel sicker and he would inevitably throw up the extra portion, too. Patrick knew that what he was doing wasn’t healthy, but he kept doing it just to keep the little voice in the back of his mind quiet. If he didn’t adhere to any of his rituals or ate a food that was too high in calories or fat, he felt like his mind was having an all-out war inside his head. 

 

Soon his clothes started to hang off his tinier frame and his cheekbones could cut ice, but he was wearing all of his old stuff just so no one would notice his habits. He would even start looking at himself in the mirror and see the Patrick that was 180 pounds and not the 120 pound skeleton that he was now. He had weighed himself that morning and was a little shocked to see that he had lost 7 pounds but didn’t look any different.  ~~ He looked like too thin ~~ .

 

Andy was the first to say something, to notice something, wrong with Patrick. “Hey, Patrick, you want my leftover protein bar? It’s vegan, but it still tastes amazing,” he said with a reassuring smile, holding out the  ~~ fattening ~~ bar to Patrick.

Patrick hesitated, realized he hesitated, then quickly said his usual line, “Um, no thanks, I already ate and feel pretty full.”

“No you didn’t.”

“What do you mean? Of course I ate, I had breakfast at the craft services with everyone else this morning. Remember I had a giant plate of fruit?”

Andy got a determined look on his face and replied, “No you didn’t. You _had_ a giant plate of fruit that you _picked_ at and then threw most of it away. Afterwards, you disappeared.”

Patrick felt cornered like a stray dog. He couldn’t let Andy, or anyone else for that matter, discover what he was doing because they would say that it ‘wasn’t healthy’. Well being fat wasn’t healthy either and he was never going back to that again.

“I think you’re seeing things Andy, of course I ate,” Patrick tried to joke with him to lighten the heavy mood.

“Just eat the fucking protein bar dude, you ran this morning and came back to the buses all sweaty and red and pale at the same time. You need to eat something if you want to gain some muscle after a workout,” Andy was visibly mad as he took Patrick’s hand and pushed the bar into it. 

“Just do this, for me,” he pleaded. “You don’t look so hot lately and we, well I, am worried for you.”

Patrick was a little taken aback at the usually puppy like Andy acting so aggressively towards him but he knew he had lost. He has to eat the bar now.  ~~ Fuck, don’t do it, don’t do it. I have to do it. ~~ “Alright dude, if it will get you off my back,” he says as he opens the bar and takes a small bite. “And what do you mean I don’t look so hot?”

“Well, it’s just that you lost a lot of weight, like really, really, quickly. Almost too quickly to be healthy, dude.”

“No way man, I was obese at the start of tour and made a mental note to cut back a little, this is just what happens when I get healthy, weight just sheds off me,” he smiles weakly back at Andy.

“Alright, well, Tyler and Josh are coming out to the Columbus show next week to see us, I’m sure that will brighten us all up a little,” Andy says.

“Yea,” Patrick smiles, “it’s at that point in the tour where we are all getting on each other’s nerves.”

Andy nods and then heads out to do his Crossfit workout for the day, leaving Patrick by himself on the tour bus. 

 

After a few minutes of staring at the mostly uneaten bar in his hands, he buries it in the trash and heads to the bathroom to do what he was becoming really good at.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around with me. I am still in treatment but I am trying to get better everyday. Here is an update and I have more written in my computer but I wanted to release this before the next chapter. I figured you guys deserved an update ASAP so here is what I feel comfortable to release so far and I will have the next chapter up soon.

105\. 

 

Not good.  ~~ GREAT ~~ .

 

He couldn’t stop.  ~~ Shouldn’t stop ~~ . 

 

What had started out as a diet has slowly become a lifestyle for him. He quickly went from a decent weight to an unimaginable weight in a few short months and he had no idea how to eat right anymore. If he ate the way he usually did, he would inevitably lose more weight. And Patrick was no idiot, he had soon come to the realization that he was now in the unhealthy range and he shouldn’t be trying to lose more weight,  ~~ its never going to be enough ~~ . 

 

There was no body dysmorphia,  not yet . 

He knew he was sickly looking. 

He knew when he looked in the hotel mirror after stepping of the scale that said 105,  ~~thats a lie and you know that, you fat piece of shit~~ , two days before the Columbus show that his ribs stuck out. 

He knew that his hips jutted out sharply and with vengeance like they were angry at being covered by a layer of healthy  ~~ sickening ~~ fat all their life. 

He knew that his collar bones were visible, like two handles of a bike, through his t-shirts, to the point that he always had to wear a jacket. 

The jacket helped with the fact that he was constantly cold. It was the middle of the summer when he started to get constantly cold and it continued through to the end of the tour in October when it actually became a little more chilly. 

The man he once knew-the “short sweaty little man”-was now, well, exactly what Patrick was looking at in the mirror. 

He knew that if anyone else were to see what he was looking at, they would be appalled; his life as he knew it would change forever and he couldn't do that to his family, his band, and his fans. 

Stepping out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, he walks over to the bed that his suitcase sat upon and looked through his clothes that he had packed in the beginning of the summer. Too big,  ~~ too small ~~ , too flashy,  ~~ everyone would notice you and you don't deserve that ~~ , too loose,  ~~wear it to cover up all the ugly rolls~~.

“I don’t have rolls!” Patrick shouted at his suitcase. Patrick grabbed his hair then stepped back abruptly. 

 

Since when did he talk to himself? 

 

Was this an admission that the little voice in the back of his head was actually tangible. Was it something he could argue with,  though you will never win . 

 

No. 

 

He was not going crazy. 

 

He shook it off and went back to his suitcase and grabbed his only skinny jeans that were actually still skinny on his legs then grabbed a baggier pair to put on over the skinny ones. He grabbed a belt to tighten the baggier pants in place; he was on the last notch of the “Medium” belt. He layered his shirts with a tank top, two short sleeves and a jacket. It was then that he decided that maybe he was due for a trip to the mall. It was getting a little hard to dress himself and if he was going to stay this skinny,  ~~ you have to ~~ , then he would need new clothes. 

 

The problem was that he didn't know how to stay skinny.

 

He only knew how to _get_ skinny.

 

But he could at least try to figure out how to gain back a little bit of healthy weight and sustain that, right? ~~N~~ ~~ o you can’t ~~ . 

 

Patrick sits down on the bed now that he is dressed and decides to kill time by calling Elisa. He opens his Macbook’s FaceTime and dials her number. She answers with their almost one-year-old son right up close to the camera and Declan has the biggest smile when he sees another face on the computer. Patrick smiles widely and waves back to him. Elisa pulls Declan back and puts him on her lap then looks up at her husband. Her smile fades quickly though.

 

Patrick gets a little worried,  “What’s up babe? Is something wrong?” he asks.

 

“P-Patrick, are- are you okay?” she asks hesitantly.

 

She knows her husband and the man before her was a shell of what she saw the day he left for tour almost five months ago. This was not him. She had noticed that he was losing weight, but between the last FaceTime call almost two weeks ago he had seemed to look skinner, if that was even possible. She began to get upset as she thought that maybe Patrick was sick, maybe he had cancer, maybe he-

 

“Woah, woah, woah, Elisa, I’m not sick and I don't have cancer, and I definitely didn't lose too much weight, honey” he says as he tries to calm her down.

 

Had she said all that out loud?  S he wonders and then confirms the wonder when she finally collects herself and asks him, “Are you sure? I mean, your face seems hollow…” This was the only part of his body that she could visibly see when they video chatted, but it was enough to know that he was losing weight, she knew him too well.

 

“No, babe, I’m fine,” he lied as much as he was breathing at this point. “Seriously don’t worry about me, worry about our boy and your mother.” He had learned to distract people to things other than himself to get out of the limelight as much as possible.

 

Elisa didn’t know what was going on with her once fluffy and cuddly husband that turned him into a tiny shell of the man he represents before her on the computer screen, but she also didn’t want to assume things. Plus, she did have more things to worry about, he was a grown man for christ sake, he could take care of himself like he always did when he was on tour.

 

“Alright, I believe you, I trust you, and I don’t want to be the naggy wife,” she says softly, “I just have to worry, thats my job Rick. You know that.”

 

“I know, and I love you, but I’ll be fine. I can’t wait for the tour to be over and I can finally spend sometime with the little guy and especially you,” Patrick winked.

 

“Ohhh, I see, so your saying I have something to look forward to when I get home?”

 

“Just wait and see, ma chère.”

 

“Hey, does this mean that you don’t want me coming to the show in Columbus? I thought I was going to drive down and visit since you’ll be sort of close to Chicago,” Elisa said with a frown.

 

“Well, Tyler and Josh are going to be there, and we thought… that the bands… that we would do a boys night… you know?” another lie.  ~~ If she sees you she will stop everything that we have worked for ~~ . Patrick started to blink very noticeably, almost like a twitch, shutting and squeezing his eyes closed for a brief moment as he listened to the demon behind his eyes, trying to silence him so that he wouldn't scare his wife. 

 

‘Him’. 

 

Did he just personalize him, too?

 

“PATRICK!”

 

“What, oh sorry, what did you say?”

 

“Are you sure your okay, I mean you seemed liked you were somewhere else a second ago.”

 

“No,” he lied for another uncountable time, “I was just thinking about all the fun _guy_  things I'm going to be doing in two days,” Patrick slid by with a controlled smile.

 

“Alright, you know I love you right?”

 

~~No, you know she is lying~~. He blinks again and then controls himself to say his goodbyes to his family.

 

It was tiring. All the lying, the manipulating, making sure Elisa and his boy didn’t come to the show and see how far he actually had taken it. Patrick found that it was the little things that exhausted him.

 

After he closes his computer he lays back on the bed, his ribs jumping up and his stomach concave in contrast to the lumpy mattress that is also surprisingly too hard, at the same time, on his bones. Then, as if to mock him and his attempts to maintain a normal relaxing second of his life, it growls at him; mad that it has been abused way too much recently. It growled again and then gave him a huge hunger pain, cramping him until he doubled over and curled into a ball on the lumpy-hard mattress in whatever fucked up town they had stopped in late last night. He wouldn't really pay that much attention to this occurrence, only, he hadn't had a hunger pain in weeks, he figured his body just gave up on trying to get him to nourish it normally and just threw in the fight. But this was much more painful and the pain was all in one place-the very middle of his stomach.

 

A second cramp and he was rushing into the bathroom.

 

He held his stomach ~~what is left of it~~ , with one arm and the other was on the tank as he leaned over and heaved, ~~~~for the first time in a long time without a finger anywhere near his throat.

 

He heaved another time and this time something came up.

 

It didn't have surprised him, really.

 

He hadn't eaten anything really substantial in over a month.

 

And today he hadn't eaten anything at all.

 

He tasted it before he saw it.

 

So when he saw red paint the bowl, he just waited for the waves of nausea and pain and overall weakness,  ~~the weakness never really goes away~~ ~~~~, to stop. He cleaned himself up, cleaned up the toilet, and went back to laying on the bed waiting for their manager to come get him for sound check.

 

That meant he was left with his thoughts. So he thought about what his life actually consisted of recently.

 

He found himself in a constant state of floating.

 

Whenever he stood up he saw black for a few seconds.

 

When he would be done with his run, he could only lay on his bunk for 20 minutes breathing heavy and seeing spots before he could do anything human-like. 

 

He was now only figuring out how to exactly eat to stay on his feet, satisfy his demon, and still do his job. 

 

For breakfast he had a cup of berries: 50 calories. For lunch he had a bowl of Campbell’s soup that was under 150 calories. For dinner he had a sautéd vegetable medley that he microwaved and half a chicken skinless chicken breast: 250. Total: 450, which left a little wiggle room of 50 calories. 

 

If the crew and band ate out, he would eat half of what was placed in front of him (usually the least caloric entree or salad) then play with the rest of what was on his plate, or drop some on the floor, or hide it in his napkin. It was almost too easy to throw away the food when Pete would easily get distracted with something someone was saying or doing. Joe was usually too drunk or high to care about what anyone else was doing unless it was funny to him. Andy, though, Andy was still keeping an eye on Patrick. But he had no idea how bad it had become since he last brought it up.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's a little short, but at least its something, right? I am still recovering from my relapse and the support you all (which I highly believe is just only like 7 people) show is amazing. Thanks again for reading this crap that I produce.

The bus was driving down I-71 to get to the Columbus show a day early when Pete spotted a truck stop with a Starbucks and declared that they must stop so that he could get his white-girl-extra-whipped-frappuccino and satisfy his hunger for some caffeine. Patrick was okay with that considering all his “safe-foods” were gone and he couldn't eat any of the other food on the bus. He needed something to eat and figured he could pick up a soup since it was 4 in the afternoon and he hadn’t had his breakfast or lunch. 

 

It was becoming a bigger problem considering Patrick was now in a perpetual state of disassociation. He felt like he was floating above his body and his limbs were all tingly, like they weren't connected to his torso. 

 

By the time they stopped and all got out to stretch their limbs and get some food or caffeine, Patrick’s vision was starting to narrow. He felt nauseous and hungry at the same time and couldn’t really keep a straight thought in his mind. 

 

He needed to be alone-to gather himself. 

 

Bathroom. 

 

There is a bathroom that only has one toilet, completely alone.

 

He starts to stumble his way to the back of the Starbucks, tripping a couple of times.

 

“Yo! Patrick!" Pete yells. Patrick turns.

 

"Holy shit, are you okay?” Pete stares at Patrick as he was getting in line to get his drink.

 

“U-um, y-yeah, just feeling like I have to go to the bathroom, like do something manly in there, ha ha,” Patrick has no idea how he could have strung together those words, but it seems to work, so he doesn't question it.

 

“Alright, alright,” Pete replies with a laugh, “you don't need to tell all the glorious details.”

 

Patrick just barely makes it to the bathroom, which is miraculously not occupied. He turns around, locks the door and then takes one look at himself in the mirror before his vision starts to become even narrower. 

 

He tries to stay focused, but he can feel it coming on. 

 

He has passed out before, when he was onstage and was trying to sing the high note in “Grand Theft Autumn”, it was not pleasant, he remembers. 

 

His head is now entirely fuzzy and the next thing he sees is total darkness.

 

Mold.

Tiles.

That yucky foam ceiling with the tiled pattern.

  
Patrick doesn’t jolt awake like the movies play it out to be when you wake up from passing out. 

He slowly, but methodically, starts to come back to consciousness when he hears banging on the door of the bathroom that he decided would be a good place to pass out it. 

He was wrong, and now his shirt, since he couldn’t think straight enough to grab his jacket, is soaked in what he could only believe to be a mixture of water, piss, and probably some mop leftover detergent.

 

He finally finds his voice and yells to the lady that is not too happy about him hogging the bathroom. 

 

He must not have been out too long since no one was actually knocking down the door. He very carefully gets himself upright and goes to the sink to splash some water on his face. He looks up and finds himself looking at a ghost. He isn't Patrick anymore. He has lost Patrick and now the demon has taken his place. Patrick sighs, too weak to fight anymore. He simply decides that there is no winning this war. He may have won a few battles here and there, but the demon has won the final fight. Patrick trails down his body to actually take stock of what he has become. 

 

His clothes hang so loosely off his frame that he looks like a well dressed bum who found some oversized millionaire’s clothes in the give-away pile at the local Salvation Army. 

 

He leans over and turns the faucet on. 

 

Pulls his hands up from his sides and notices that they are shaking, pretty badly, and there seems to be no stopping it. 

 

Just another thing the demon has taken over. 

 

The control of his body is not his anymore. 

 

Shakily, he puts his hands under the cool water and splashes his face with the water. He realizes that he hasn’t surrendered to the demon in his head. He had become his own traitor. _He_ listened every time the voice said to not eat. _He_ listened every time the voice told him to lie about making himself sick. _He_ supplied the enemy with so many weapons that surrender would be too nice of an adjective to describe his defeat. 

 

Patrick wholeheartedly **succumbed** to the demon that made itself home inside his head. 

 

He slowly turns his head away from the stranger he sees in the mirror. He grabs a paper towel from the dispenser, wipes his face, and shakily walks out of the bathroom.

 

“‘Trick! I got you your favorite mocha with extra whip! You look like you need a little pick me up,” Pete runs toward his favorite person outside of his family with his present in hand.

 

“Thanks,” Patrick tries to fake happiness and doesn’t even try to lie about not being hungry. 

 

“No problem dude.”

 

Patrick holds out his hand to take the drink and nearly drops it with all the shakiness he’s had ever since he passed out in the bathroom.

 

“Woah, dude, are you okay?” Pete asks with all the worry that a concerned friend could possibly have.

 

“Yeah, I think I just had one too many Red Bulls, I think you are rubbing off on me,” Patrick laughs and takes the drink. 

 

“Alright, but you would tell me if something was wrong right?”

 

“Of course,” Patrick smiles. 

 

Then he thinks back to what he was just looking at in the mirror. Couldn’t Pete see what was going on with him? Was his mind just lying to him about what he actually looked like or was Pete too oblivious of his best friend to notice that he was withering away to nothing? 

 

~~He doesn't care enough to notice you. You are just a fat piece of shit that even your wife doesn’t want to see you~~ . 

 

The demon was right, Patrick thinks to himself.

 

Patrick waits for Pete to run ahead of him to get the “good” seat on the couch in the bus before he throws away the  fattening mocha into the trash. Patrick sighs, he realizes that the shakes aren’t going away, but doesn't have the energy or care enough to get worried or try to remedy it. He simply shuffles his way back to the bus and collapses into his bunk. 

 

The last thought on his mind was that before he woke up and realized he had passed out in the bathroom, he felt nothing -no pain, no voice, no worry- and he liked that he felt nothing. 

 

Maybe he can feel that way again, only this time, on his own accord.


	9. Chapter 9 "A Day in the Life"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> finally.

6 AM: Columbus, Ohio, September 15, 2015

Patrick wakes to a very jolting alarm on his phone. He get out of his bunk and looks down. “Great, just fucking great.” He was still wearing the shirt covered in disgusting bathroom scum from when he passed out yesterday evening. He looks back towards his bunk and sees a wet stain on the covers.  Y ~~ou have to clean it before anybody sees it and asks what happened~~. He methodically strips the bed and himself, then throws the soiled mess into a laundry bag that he stuffs in his drawer to wash when he gets the chance. 

He is still running off of the good feeling that you get when you wake up in the morning. For Patrick, that feeling was elusive and only came every once in a while, but when it did, it meant that he could push himself just a little further that day. Another mile, another morsel of food denied, another, another, another. He decided to use this fuel today to run a little longer. 

As Patrick pulls up his running shorts, and ties the strings together he notices that something is wrong. The pants will _not_ stay up. 

 

Shit. 

 

The healthy part of his brain is telling him that this is bad, really, really, bad. The demon, however, is laughing.  ~~ Our hard work is finally paying off. But don't forget that you are still a fat nobody that is incapable of success. ~~

“I know!” 

 

Patrick replies out loud. 

 

Patrick never does that. 

 

He always replies silently in his head.  Another shout from the healthy part, yelling at him that this is once again: really, really bad.He also has a fleeting thought that his demon sounds like a fourteen year old girl with bad self-esteem. Has he stooped so low that he is regressing to a junior high schooler?

 

After recovering a little he remembers that Pete has always been a few sizes smaller than him. He raids Pete’s things to find a pair. They are even baggier than his were. _  
What the fuck is going on?_ Patrick thinks to himself. When did he become skinner than the infamous Pete Wentz?  ~~ You might be skinner than Petey boy, but you are still worthless. ~~ “I know!” Patrick replies again. He grabs at his hair and pulls tight to try to dampen the voices inside his head. 

 

Fuck. He just yelled at nothing and nobody and there are other people sleeping on the bus. He checks to see if he woke anyone up and is relieved to find that he didn’t. He picks up a leather belt and doesn’t care if he looks ridiculous in sweat shorts, a t-shirt, and a fancy belt while he runs.

 

Two miles in and his vision becomes blurry.

 

Four miles in and his feet and hands become numb.

 

9 A.M.

Six miles in and back at the bus. He doesn’t remember taking all his clothes off and getting in the shower. But here he is standing underneath an ice cold shower (to lose more calories) with his head leaned up against the tile on the bus’s shower wall.

 

10 A.M.

Once Patrick is dressed he sits down next to Pete who is eating a bowl of cereal. Patrick yearns to eat some. His once favorite food. The demon would never allow it. Pete, however, had different plan. He sees Patrick’s hands shaking a little bit as he grabs an apple to eat for his breakfast. “Nope, dude. You, my friend, are having a bowl of Frosted Flakes with tons of sugar and 2% milk.” Pete says with a stern face. 

 

“Oh,” Patrick replies faintly, “thanks, but I’m fine.”

 

“I’ve known you since you were a senior in high school,” Pete says like it’s supposed to mean something.

 

“Yeah…?” Patrick asks with hesitation.

 

“So, I know when you’re fine, and when you’re not fine. Right now you are  _not_ fine.”

“Ha. ha. Pete, very funny,” Patrick says with his masking smile, “but I feel better than I have in a long time. I mean look at me, I am healthy!” he lies through his teeth. Pete catches it and throws it back in his face.

 

“I saw you this morning.”

 

~~ Great, you fucked up again .  ~~

 

“Wow Pete, watching me get dressed, its like a fan fiction author’s wet dream,” he replies sarcastically.

 

Pete’s hard head isn’t letting the conversation turn from where he wants it to go. “You wore a _belt_ to go running. Dude, that is like a million red flags. How much weight have you actually lost? I mean, I'm kind of getting a little worried,” he sighs. 

 

Patrick knows he is caught, maybe not entirely, but still caught none-the-less. He makes an audible in his game plan and decides to let Pete think he was won this battle. “I dunno, maybe 20 pounds? I don't really keep track.”  ~~ Liar ~~ . “Why does it matter to you though?” Patrick is still trying to steer the conversation in a different direction, or at least from the spotlight that Pete has created.

 

Pete looks disgusted. 

 

~~ You are disgusting, see even Pete knows ~~ .

“Don’t patronize me, Pete.” They both sit in silence for what felt like hours but was probably only 30 seconds. Finally Pete makes the first move by pouring another bowl of cereal, putting about a cup of sugar on top, and then adding the milk to the mixture. Patrick is salivating at this point. He tries to look away but the bowl is moving closer to him by Pete’s direction and soon ends up on his lap. Patrick looks up at Pete only to find the kind face reciprocate a sense of assuredness. Pete holds out a spoon for Patrick and he knows there is no getting out of this. If he is going to prove that he doesn't really have a problem then he needs to start adding some evidence to his case.

"Can you just prove to me you are okay and eat some of your favorite food?"

 

Want to know a little about eating disorders? They are all different for every person who has one, some are afraid of food, some loath food, and others love and crave it all the time. Patrick was the latter of the three. If given the chance he would eat like he used to but the demon keeps putting up walls around the food he would normally pick. Pete has just went through the wall with a wrecking ball. For the next 5 minutes it takes Patrick to devour the heavenly bowl of gold, the wall stays crumbled at Patrick’s feet. Once Pete is satisfied and the bowl is clean he tells Patrick that he wants to hit up the local guitar shop with Tyler and Josh and asks if Patrick if he would like to join. Yes would be his usual answer, however, the demon was starting to build the wall again and the guilt of the binge was starting to gnaw at his throat.

“How about I catch up with you guys in like an hour?”

“Sounds good to me man. And thanks for eating that bowl. I was getting kind of worried about you for a second.”

“Well, don’t, seriously, I am fine, I just get a little carried away sometimes.”

“That is an understatement,” Pete laughs as he walks out the door of the bus.

The wall was just completed around Patricks mind again and the part trapped inside is the perpetual yelling to get rid of the binge. So he does. This time, there is red mixed in with the tan cereal and white milk. He chooses to ignore it. Now that he was empty again he could go back to his regular breakfast of the small apple. It left him still a little bit empty but also sated his hunger just enough.

 

12 P.M.

Patrick finds the store with the address that Pete had texted him earlier and walks inside to find himself surrounded by all things glorious in his mind. Guitars, amps, _drums_ , they were all here just itching to be played. It only takes him a few minutes to find Pete, Tyler, and Josh, they were all gathered around a guitar case with a signed guitar by Axle Rose. Patrick walks up behind them and tries not to scare them so he softly says hello,

“Hey! Patrick what’s up?” Josh says when he turns around. The smile he has begins to fade when he actually looks at the singer standing before him. Tyler is in the same shocked state. 

“Hey man, are you okay? You look,” Tyler searches for words that won't offend Patrick, “kind of not well.”

Josh nods in agreement. Pete seems confused by this accusation asks, “What do you mean? He’s lost a little weight, but he is still healthy, right Trick?” He falters at the end of his statement.

“What? Oh! Yea, I lost some weight to get healthier again,” Patrick should get an Oscar with the amount of acting he has done lately. 

“Trick, we just saw you, like 5 months ago, and you looked fine then, why would you want to -let alone- actually, lose weight?” Tyler asks wearily. “I mean you dropped a lot of weight in a really short time. 

“Maybe you should see a doctor to make sure you are actually alright,” Josh adds.

Pete is still caught a little of guard by this sudden intervention on Patrick’s behalf. Patrick, however, knows exactly why the boys are upset. Pete has been around Patrick nearly 24/7 so the weight loss seemed gradual to him. You don’t really notice something that is happening right in front of you, but when you leave and come back to something that has changed, you can really see the extent of the damage. He wasn't going to tell Pete that, though, obviously.

“Holy smokes guys, calm down, I’m fine,” Patrick adds defensively. “Lets look at some awesome gear, that’s why we came here right?”

The boys exchange looks and both internally come to the conclusion that they should stop talking about Patrick’s health for now. They would need a better plan, a better approach to actually make some head way.

“Frick YA!” Josh yells; he was maybe going a little overboard on the whole ignoring issue.

 

1:30 P.M.

After a successful hour and a half of messing around with every and all of the instruments, everyone is complaining of hunger. Patrick was complaining about something entirely different in his own head. He had started to get a little light headed walking around the store. By the time they actually did leave, black dots were invading his eye sight. He smartly avoids their lunch plans and heads back to the bus before he passes out again. When he gets there, his shoes are off and his head is on his pillow and in a matter of seconds he is asleep on his own terms.

 

4 P.M.

He wakes up from the nap feeling no better than before and concedes to eating something. Chicken broth. 60 calories. That with the apple, 90 calories, a stick of gum, 5 calories, and he is at a grand total of 155 calories for the day. This might be a new record if he can keep his count low with a minuscule dinner. After the broth, he decides to call Elisa. He doesn't FaceTime. He doesn’t want his wife to see him and react the way that Twenty One Pilots did.

 

6 P.M.

The guys all get together, Twenty One Pilots Vs. Fall Out Boy, in a game of Mario Cart.This only involves sitting, much to the relief of Patrick. Tyler and Josh act as though their previous attempt at concern never happened. They understand demons, even if Patrick hasn't yet come to terms with the monster inside his head. Time. Time heals all wounds. At least that is what they hope for Patrick’s sake.

 

8 P.M.

He eats one of Andy’s vegan microwavable meal, 150 calories, to dispel the black dots that seem to forever loom in his vision today.

 

12 A.M

After hours laying his bunk he finally closes garage band and resides to falling asleep. 

Patrick finds himself laying on his side, but, something feels wrong. It takes him a minute, but it finally clicks. His legs are stacked on top of one another, yet, his thighs are not touching. There is actually space where his legs usually rested upon each other. His right leg is held up by his left knee.  ~~ Progress. This is what we are going for! Remember? Remember why we started all of this? ~~

We started this because I wanted to be the man that everyone sees me as. I want to be someone that people love and look up to.  ~~ Stick with me and that will soon be true. ~~

 

Patrick falls asleep imagining all the food he longs to consume but has condemned to never again touch his lips. Something has to give. Something is _going_ to give.


	10. Chapter 10

Its the second day in Columbus and their show was tonight. But Andy had something else on his mind besides pre-concert jitters. He had been taking mental notes of Patrick and was trying to piece together puzzle he knew existed about the singer. Something was wrong and he knew he knew what it was but, he couldn't figure it out. While Patrick is out on his run that morning he gathers everyone into the dressing room, including Josh and Tyler, in the hopes that his puzzle might be completed with some more pieces added by other witnesses. 

Once everyone is grumbling into the room complaining about it being too early for a meeting, Andy finally speaks up.

 

“Guys, has anyone else noticed something is wrong with Patrick?” he asks the room, “I mean he has just been acting extra weird this tour.” 

Everyone looks worriedly around the room, confirming Andy’s suspicions that something was indeed wrong.

 

Joe is the first to speak up, “Well, now that you say something, I have been noticing at sound checks, and even in concerts, Patrick is missing notes on his guitar. Like, his fingers seem to be moving way to slow, almost delayed,” Joe confesses, “I just thought he was preoccupied and didn't really worry about it, but you guys seem to know some more things that we haven't said to each other.”

 

Andy nods his head and then adds, “Well I’ve seen some things Patrick has been doing lately. I didn’t mean to snoop or anything, but I Patrick is always counting things. I mean, I don’t know, I’ve just seen him on his calculator on his phone a couple of times. And I always see him checking labels on the foods before he eats them.”

 

“If he eats them,” their tour manager Bob said. Everyone turned to look at him. “I see him eating less and less everyday. Its like nothing is good enough for him to eat so he just skips it all together.”

 

Andy was starting to get really worried. He was putting together a puzzle he knew was right in front of him but he was still missing a few pieces.

 

After Bob spoke up, the rest of the crew all chimed in with their accounts of odd behavior, ranging from throwing away food to seemingly always disappearing to the bathroom. They found out that after meals was when he went missing. 

 

Pete had finally had enough. “Okay, everyone needs to calm down. I noticed something different with Trick but I've asked him about it and he assured me nothing is wrong or going on with him,” he looks around hesitantly, “I even made him eat a few times and he always complied. I think you all are looking way too deep into things."

 

“What happened after he ate the food Pete. What did he do?” Andy asked.

 

Pete hesitated once more. “Nothing, I mean, he didn’t-,” Pete trailed off in deep thought. 

 

“Shit.”

 

Andy started to get a chill and a bad feeling in the bottom of his gut.

 

Tyler and Josh, who had been content to listen in and stay out of the discussion exchanged looks and asked to speak. 

“This might be out of turn to say,” Tyler started. Andy nodded for him to continue. “But in the six months since we last saw Patrick, he has lost, like, a ton of weight. I don’t mean to be rude but how could you all have missed that?”

 

Pete begins to try to justify Trick’s behavior again, “He is just getting healthy you guys! Seriously he runs everyday and eats healthier. Nothing is wrong with that.” Pete folds his arms for emphasis.

 

“Pete,” Tyler nudges, “he passed healthy twenty pounds ago.”

 

Andy has gone completely white. He isn’t the only one. Pete’s face contorts in thought and horror as he manages to fit everything together. The world seemed to be crashing down around his formulating thoughts. 

 

“He can’t, no, it can’t, it can’t happen to Trick.” Pete starts to ramble, “I didn't want to believe it. I just sat back and watched it happen. Let all those people say horrible stuff about him. I didn't stop it. I didn’t help him when he obviously needed help. I was supposed to keep him safe. How could I have let this happen?” 

 

Pete finally gives in to the remorse and lets tears fall silently down his checks. “M-my ‘Trick, he was perfect just the way he was. How could he not have seen that? H-he must be in so much pain and I-I haven’t done anything-,” he is cut off by Andy. “Pete, we all let him down. But we can’t sit here in self-pity. We need to come up with a plan to fix this.” Andy assumes the leadership role since Pete is in no condition to do so. 

 

They come up with a plan to confront Patrick before the show. It’s decided that they cant really do anything about it if Patrick doesn’t admit his disordered behavior. No one has said the words, though, it’s on everyone’s mind. 

 

Eating Disorder. 

 

It was two hours until the the band had to be ready to play when Pete, Andy, and Joe got together see Patrick. Earlier, he had excused himself to the bus for some down time so it was the perfect time considering he was finally alone. The threesome went over what they were going to say to Patrick so as not to sound confrontational or accusatory. When they finally felt confident with themselves they knew it was time. 

 

The band opened the bus door and boarded in search of Patrick. He wasn’t in the living space, nor the bunk area, that meant in only left bathroom. Pete went to see if Trick was in there and found the door ajar. Quietly he peered through the crack and found that Patrick was indeed there. What Pete wasn’t expecting was to see a tear streaked Patrick with his shirt bunched up under his armpits pinching himself in all the places that once held cuddle worthy softness. The only thing that was there now were jutting bones. It looked as though a light breeze could knock him over at any second. Yet, it seemed that Patrick couldn’t see the same thing he was seeing because he was holding his skin between his fingers and quietly saying over and over again: “You fat, fucking piece of shit.” 

 

Oh no. Oh dear God no was the only thing Pete was thinking. It had turned out to be much worse than any of them could have ever imagined. Pete drew his breath and lightly rapped on the door. This startled Patrick and he fumbled to lower his shirt and wipe his tears. “One second!” he said trying to sound like he hadn't just been crying of which he failed to do.

 

“Trick?”

 

Patrick, who had apparently not seen Pete watch him in horror, was finally satisfied enough to exit the bathroom answered with a much too cheery,

 

“Yes?” 

 

“Look,” Pete began, “We don't mean to to be…” Pete struggled to remember what he had rehearsed only moments earlier. “We don't mean to be in your business but we couldn’t help to notice something a little off with you lately.”

 

Patrick flashed a look of terror and then expertly covered it up with a smile. “What? What do you mean?”

 

“Um, okay, I’m going to cut the crap. We are worried about you. Over the last couple months you have dropped a ton of weight-” 

 

“Oh come on,” Patrick interrupted.

 

“No, seriously dude, just let me finish okay?” 

 

Patrick nodded.

 

“All you do is run or sleep. And I haven't seen you eat a full meal without vanishing to the bathroom immediately afterwards in a long time. You are missing notes on stage, you shake all the time, you deny food any chance you get, I mean, I could go on…”

 

Andy steps in after Pete is finished. “We researched those… symptoms, and we know we aren't doctors, but it seems pretty clear you have some kind of… eating disorder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the little cliff hanger. i have a lot of thoughts for the next chapter. i was going to make this longer but that would have delayed this post, so i decided to give you guys something rather than make you wait forever. even though you guys already wait so long between each chapter. god i feel like its sherlock episodes.


	11. Chapter 11

“Ha ha, very funny you guys,” Patrick replies. He tries to play it off like they are joking around with him. “I get it, you notice I've been losing weight and you're happy for me so you decided to play a joke on me,” Patrick smiles, a little too wide, hoping this would assure them that nothing is wrong with him.

 

“‘Trick,” Pete pleads, “we aren't kidding, dude, we really think something is wrong.”

 

The other guys are standing behind Pete and they all somehow have the same expression on their faces, worry along with uneasiness. Joe steps forward and asks about his recent habit of vanishing to the bathroom after every meal. “Oh,” Patrick laughs sheepishly, “I just have been fighting a stomach flu, it keeps acting up, that’s all guys.”

 

He defects every presentation of evidence that all points towards an eating disorder of some kind. Every time Joe or Andy ask about a weird behavior, he brushes it off with an excuse.

 

Pete had been silent for awhile before he speaks up again. But this time, he can’t hind his emotions and anger seeps through his every word.

“We aren’t taking no for an answer, Patrick! You need fucking help and we are offering it! Get your fucking shit together and realize something is wrong with the way you have been living since the tour started! God-fucking-damnit!”

 

Pete sighs with his fists clenched and stares at Patrick.

 

Patrick doesn’t know what to think. So, in the moment of silence, his diseased mind thinks for him.

 

_See, you ARE a worthless piece of shit. Look at how mad Pete is at you. He looks like he is going to punch you. You need to disappear, right now. Just walk away so you don't hurt anyone anymore_.

 

Patrick backs up slowly. His eyes are filled with tears as he listens to the insults on repeat inside his head.

 

He replays what Pete just told him. His lips quiver and the only thing left to do is run.

 

So he runs.

 

* * *

 Pete stares at Patrick for a millisecond before he realizes what he has just done. He looks to the shocked faces of Joe and Andy and tries to formulate words in his mouth but it won’t work.

He sees tears well up in the little man’s eyes, sees his lips quiver, and worst of all, he sees his brain working.

Working against him.

He can read every insult Patrick is telling himself right now and the only thing Pete can’t understand is how he let it go this far.

His best friend for 15 years is reduced to a something he can’t recognize anymore. What happened to him to make him feel, think, act this way? Pete has so many unanswered questions in his head that he doesn’t know what to ask first.

Then, it’s too late.

He’s gone.

* * *

 

Nothing really happens in between the time when Patrick runs off and the time when he returns ready for the show. And no one knows where Patrick went, only that he was gone and then he came back. They had decided that Patrick needed some space and let him do his own thing. They knew he would be back for the show. And he was. An hour before they had to be on stage, he was dressed and ready.

 

What everyone didn’t know was the whole time he was gone, he was running. He ran until he couldn’t run anymore and then he ran back to the venue. On top of not eating for the last three days, he has exercised himself to exhaustion and was running on fumes. He noticed when he was dressing himself that the buttons on his shirt were blurry and his fingers felt like lead pipes trying to button them. He noticed his hands shook when he put his fedora on his head. He noticed that his legs buckled a few times trying to put his pants on. He noticed that his vision went black when he stood up from tying his shoes. He noticed all this and ignored it at the same time. The only thing he could focus on was the constant track of insults and self-deprecating thoughts running around inside his skull. They are the only thing he hears.

 

_Fat fuck._

 

_Stupid little man._

 

_Worthless._

 

_Can’t even sing._

 

_Everyone is lying to you._

 

_Everyone just wants you gone._

 

_Just die._

 

_Kill yourself._

 

_Kill yourself._

 

_Kill yourself_.

 

He didn’t know when the suicidal thoughts started. But they were there. Oh, they were fucking there.

 

He walks out of his dressing room and meets the rest of the band waiting for him in the hallway. “Lets just talk about this after the show guys, okay?” Patrick asks the group. They agree and head off to the stage. When they get there, Pete initiates the ritual handshake and notices something a little off about Patrick. His eyes look glazed. He seems like he is somewhere else, unfocused. He hopes Patrick is just trying to think about the show and not what he had yelled at him.

 

* * *

 

 

It was about three songs into the show when Joe saw Patrick swaying on his feet. It continued until the fifth song. Pete and Patrick usually stand in front of each other and play their bass and guitar while leaning on each other’s shoulders. Pete walks over to Patrick and he notices Patrick stumble a little when he walks toward Pete. They play together and Pete sees Patrick’s eyes go glazed and unfocused again. But he manages to make it back to the microphone. He was singing the chorus of “Jet Pack Blues” when Pete glances back over to Patrick with a smile on his face that disappears in an instant. Patrick’s eyes roll into the back of his head. Pete couldn’t make it to him fast enough when Patrick collapses to the floor. It was the loudest thud of Pete’s existence. He watches in slow motion as the greatest man he has ever known falls to the ground, and hits his head, hits his head hard, on the stage. Pete didn't know it at the time but he finds out later the crowd was completely silent. Pete makes it to Patrick first and picks up his head to lay on his lap. Patrick is white as a ghost and barely breathing. He hears Andy yell, “GET A FUCKING MEDIC, JESUS CHRIST GET SOMEONE.” He hears Joe tell him to pick up Patrick and take him backstage, so he does. As soon as Pete picks him up, he wants to vomit. How could he be this light? Can he really feel his ribs? Through his leather jacket!? Pete feels the blood drain from his face as he looks down at his ‘Trick and sees a shell of the man he used to know. Pete finally pulls it together enough to get him backstage and onto a couch. He strokes Patrick’s hair and tries to rouse him. Nothing works.

 

The paramedics are there.

 

He stops breathing.

 

CPR.

 

Yelling.

 

Stretcher.

 

“CLEAR!”

 

shock.

 

“ONE MORE TIME!”

 

“CLEAR!”

 

shock.

 

Patrick is taken into the ambulance.

 

Sirens…


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit, i'm back. i honestly couldn't believe the recent activity and comments and kudos on this work and it wasn't that I was never going to update, its just that I didn't think i could write anything good. but here is some stuff from my brain and I want to thank specifically 'wendy' who said that this was the best fanfic they have ever read and motivated me to get my shit together and just fucking write the next chapter. thanks for sticking with me oh and wilson and the music video are fucking incredible and what did we do to deserve these men?

Pete remembers that breathing is a necessity after a few minutes. By then the ambulance is out of sight and their tour manager has ushered the band into his SUV to follow the vehicle carrying their singer. No one has spoken yet. 

‘Shock’ Pete thinks. 

He looks over to Joe and Andy. Joe has his head in his hands and cant stop shaking his legs and Andy is staring out the window clutching his phone. 

“We should call Elisa,” Andy breaks the silence. “David and Patricia, too.”

The other two just nod and let Andy make the calls since he seems the most collected and least likely to have a mental breakdown in the middle of a conversation. He calls Elisa first and doesn’t say more than he has to get her here as quick as possible. He doesn’t want to be specific enough to make her sick. The call to Patrick’s dad goes the same but the call to Patricia is a little more intense with a lot more hysteria but Andy makes it through and gets the point across that she needs to get on a plane immediately. When he is finished he turns back to Pete who’s face still hasn’t returned to its normal color and his eyes still haven’t returned to their normal size. Joe is no better. 

No one says anything else until they arrive at the Ohio State University ER. Andy continues to take the lead and walks into the waiting area first to find the receptionist and see if there is any news on Patrick. It's not likely since the ambulance arrived just minutes beforehand, but what else can a person do when they have no idea what to do?

Pete listens to the nurse behind the desk say that he is being worked on in a room and for them to just take a seat. They find some open chairs grouped together and continue their silence as each one of them processes what they can while they wait. 

 

Wait for the best or worst news of their lives. 

 

Pete can’t stop thinking that this was something he could have prevented. If he wasn’t so caught up in the tour and his family then he would have seen the signs sooner or maybe he could have forced management to end the tour and then he could have gotten Patrick some help. 

“Guys, what the fuck did we do?” Pete wonders aloud.

“Us?” Joe responds, “We didn’t do anything. We didn’t do anything and now he might die because we did nothing.”

Andy is quiet for a moment and then says, “Whatever. What’s done is done. No point in worrying about the would-haves and could-haves. Let’s just send good vibes and deal with what happens next.”

“GOOD VIBES?!?” Pete screams causing a few scared people in the waiting room to glance in his direction. “What the fuck is that going to do? Huh?!? Seriously Hurley, just fucking stop with your straightedge-meditation-crossfit bullshit for once.”

Andy looks hurt but doesn’t respond to him. 

“Take it easy man,” Joe says quietly and puts a hand on Pete’s shoulder. Pete shrugs it off and then stands up abruptly and goes to find the bathroom. When he gets there he splashes some cold water on his face and looks at himself in the mirror. Bad mistake. Shaking his head he turns around and starts to walk back to his seat when he notices a nurse walk out into the waiting room and in a split second without thinking grabs the door before it shuts and slips into the Emergency Department. He panics for a second then sees a few people run into a room and figures if Patrick is anywhere, he is probably critical enough that people were running to care for him. He tries to look like he belongs and slowly makes his way towards the commotion. At first he can’t see anything because, while the door to the trauma room is open, there is a curtain pulled shut. He just listens for awhile, not really comprehending any of the medical jargon at first, until one thing that finally registers hits him in the heart like a wooden stake.

 

“What’s his weight?” someone asks hurriedly?

“Can’t be more than 43-44 kilos,” someone replies.

‘Kilos?’ Pete thinks and tries to remember the conversion he learned one time when he was in Europe. 

“Scale says 40.0”

Pete does the math. Then does it again. Then pulls out his phone and checks his math on Google.

“88 pounds,” he whispers to himself.

Pete looks up to hear a person who he assumes is the doctor ask “Will someone please get me a smaller intubation tube!?” He watches a nurse rush out of the room and leave the curtain open.

Pale. 

Tiny, oh so tiny. 

Fragile. Too fragile.

Pete sees his best friend, his bandmate, his… musical soul mate lying on the gurney with six people in scrubs surrounding him. Its too surreal. One of them is on top of the little man giving CPR while the other is blowing air through what looks like a big balloon into his lungs. He watches as the doctor calls for one more amp of some kind of drug and then he watches someone else pull a cart with a defibrillator next to the gurney. He holds his breath as he helplessly looks on while his friend is shocked again. 

“I feel a pulse!”

Pete lets out a breath.

“Normal sinus. Good job guys,” the doctor says, “lets get him stabilized and intubated.”

Pete feels like _his_ heart was just electrocuted. 

He watches for a few more moments before someone notices the open curtain and closes it. He figures he should probably go back to the waiting area before he is kicked out entirely and when he finds his way back he stands frozen in front of the other guys. Joe looks up and his face falls.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Joe shakes his head and starts to hyperventilate. Andy finally notices Pete and asks what was going on.

“They got his heart to start again.”

Joe didn’t hear him at first and is still in his own world until Andy slaps him out of it and explains, slowly, that Patrick is okay, for now.

Andy tries to call Patrick’s family but when he cant get through realizes they are probably either on a plane or getting ready to get on a plane. He texts them so they will get it when they turn their phones back on.

Pete is still in a daze trying to figure out what the next step is when he is interrupted in his thoughts by a man in scrubs asking for the family of Patrick Stump.

The three men and their manager hurriedly stand up and rush over to him to explain who they are and that they are his emergency contacts while they are on tour.

“He is stable for now and on his way to get a few tests done and then he will probably be moved to the ICU,” they are told. “He is in critical condition right now. His heart went into an abnormal rhythm and then ultimately stopped. From what it looks like, he is extremely malnourished and his problems are most likely due to electrolyte imbalances.”

They all look on eagerly waiting for more information. The doctor looks between all of them and then asks, “Has Mr. Stump ever been treated for an eating disorder?”

Pete feels like he was just slapped in the face. It wasn’t real before. It wasn’t confirmed before. But now a doctor, a professional, who is a fucking literal doctor, has just asked him if Patrick has an eating disorder. Pete feels light headed and barely listens on as Andy explains to the doctor what has been going on recently with the little man in the other room. He vaguely registers that should just wait here or that they can go to the cafeteria to wait until they have a room number for them to go to. He doesn’t even remember walking to the cafeteria or ordering a coffee or sitting down or the fact that his face is now wet. 

He does remember when, after what seems like an eternity has passed, he hears his phone ring and answers it on auto pilot without even thinking and then is told that two people can visit Patrick at a time in room 327 on the ICU. He ends the call and relays the information to the rest of the band. It doesn’t take long for them to decide that Pete and Joe should be the first two to go. 

They make it to the unit and then to Patrick’s door before they freeze and can’t seem to walk into the room. After a few moments of hesitation and a few more deep breaths, they enter and find Patrick with medical equipment surrounding him and IVs and breathing tubes and god knows what else making him look even smaller than he is, if that was even possible. Pete thinks he looks the same as he did when he saw him in the ER but Joe is in his own shock and goes to pull a chair next to the bed and sit down. Pete follows suit and grabs the hand of his best friend, careful of the IV, and rubs circles on the back. He winces slightly at the visibility and jagedness of the bones he feels but continues because he doesn’t know what else to do. His face is wet again and all he can think is that he will do anything in his power to make Patrick whole again. 

He will fight the fucking army and donate all of his organs if it means making Patrick better. His perfect Patrick who never had a good thought about himself was dying right in front of his eyes and it took a freaking heart attack for Pete to realize he needs to do something. Now. 

First thing he plans on doing is trying to somehow make Patrick see how beautiful and incredible and talented and loved and appreciated he is no matter how much he will resist. If-no-when he wakes up, Pete will force wonderfully true thoughts into that fucking little head until Patrick is sick of hearing it and then do it some more. Pete lays his head on Patrick’s hand and doesn’t stop thinking of things to say and ways to make Patrick realize something that Pete realized the moment he met him. 

Patrick is the best thing that has ever happened to his world and he is not letting him go without a fight. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry its short?
> 
> at least it exists.

When the other guys leave him to be with Patrick (because apparently they like to shower, eat, and be human?) Pete decides that if he is ever going to make certain that Patrick hears what he has to say about his own (FUCKING) talents, its when he is physically unable to prevent the occurrence from continuing to happen. So he seizes his chance and decides to say his peace and spew his screwed up, fucked up, and probably, unappreciated train of thought to the only person who ever understood or could make sense of the fucking thing. 

“Fuck you. Okay, now normally I would let you retaliate but since you have put yourself into a position that you are physically incapable of doing so, I believe it is my one and God-given-chance to FORCE you to listen to what I have to say.” 

 

Pete takes a small breath and collects his thoughts just long enough that he can begin his next sentence.

 

“I,”he halts, because for some reason his throat closes and he stops mid-sentence. His fist pounds on the bed he sits beside and he tries to look up to the face of the only man that used to organize and beautifully sew his words into award-winning lyrics. 

 

“Fuck,” he takes a deep breath, “I seriously don’t think I will ever be able to forcibly make you understand everything that you can’t about yourself. And that sucks. That really fucking sucks. It sucks because I know you know all of this and all of these words have been said, but Jesus Christ, Patrick,” Pete lets a tear drop and realizes that Patrick will never hear this and even if he did, he would never believe the words coming out of his mouth. Patrick’s hand tightens around Pete’s in that moment and he thinks that even his own mind is trying to trick him into being comforted. He laughs about how pathetic he has become that his own mental illness has decided to stop waging war on himself and is trying to help him. Then his hand squeezes again, “Patrick?”

Nothing.

“Okay, Rick, don’t fucking fuck with me, you dick,” Pete smiles to the hospital room hoping that he isn’t the only consciousness present. When there isn’t a response Pete reluctantly continues with his speech because the pessimist that is ever present in his mind had already told him to stop being so naive and to just let his mind free itself while his best friend is still ‘technically alive’.

 

“How do I make you understand? That is a stupid question,” Pete chuckles to himself, “you will never understand and that is what makes you so amazing. You will never grasp the impact you make with people. I know, and I hate that I know this, but I know that you will always see yourself as the fat, ugly, stupid and untalented one in any group or people that you find yourself in and there are no words to even explain the stupidity and invalidity of those thoughts. And what’s fucked up is that I know this because I used to think the same things and,” Pete chokes in thoughts before his words can even come out, “i know that I only moved on by getting older and I cant stand the thought of waiting for you to realize these things in five more years.”

 

Pete looks up for a second, “Even if you don’t mean to. Even if you only puke on a piece of paper and think it’s shit, that will never be what the rest of us think of you.” 

 

Pete smiles to himself thinking about one of his favorite memories. “Remember when you made this shitty version of a song,” he laughs, “that we ended up never releasing yet a few musically inclined fans found it online and thought nothing but fucking musically critical opinions about it? And not bad opinions, mind you!?!” He looks up from the hand he has clasped around Patrick’s and searches for anything. 

 

“You were so happy, to see that people looked at your work and thought nothing about what you looked like, dressed like, or acted like. It was your dream come true and its like you forgot that people… fuck… FANS, think that way.” Pete shakes his head. “I…”

 

Pete’s words are interrupted by his own hiccuping trying to conceal his sobs, to no one but himself. With his forehead on Patrick’s slacked fist Pete finally decided to let it out to no one. Not his long time girl friend, not his parents, not his band mates, or even Patrick, he cries for the pain he knows that Patrick has endured knowing that he has simultaneously felt a similar pain and yet understands that he will never feel the same pain that Patrick has. 

 

‘Mental illness is a fucking bitch,’ Pete thinks.

 

His hand becomes tighter again…

 

‘It’s just my head again,’ he thinks almost defiantly to himself.

 

No, his hand has definitely been squeezed by the asshole in the bed he is seated next to.

 

“Yo…

 

dickhead…

 

squeeze my hand again if you can hear me.”

 

Pete almost dies in his seat when the pressure is returned with almost the epitome of a Patrick sarcastic response.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i lie?
> 
> yes its short, but it at least i wrote it..

“people looked at your work and thought nothing about what you looked like, dressed like, or acted like. It was your dream come true and its like you forgot that people, fuck, FANS, think that way.”

If Patrick could ever describe what coming out of a coma felt like without ever having that experience except through television and movies, phew. 

That was it. 

Coming to consciousness without opening his eyes, or knowing who he was or where he was- would have been scary, except that he didn't know that it should have been. Then he heard this fucking voice, a voice he associated with happiness, home, and belonging and he was shoved into the conscious ocean of reality that he was not prepared for. ‘FUCK’ he thought to himself. Then he thought about what he had just heard, and started to recognize the familiar voice. He tried to move and only managed to clench his hands. 

‘SHIT’ Patrick thinks to himself, ‘Try harder!’ 

Then he hears the familiar voice, that he hasn’t let himself make a distinctive connection with say, “Yo, dickhead, squeeze my hand again if you can hear me.”

If there was such a thing as smiling inside your head, Patrick would have been very guilty of such an act. He makes the same clenching motion he did before and hopes it elicits the same reaction as before and when he hears a gasp and door slam open, he assumes he did what he was hoping for. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pete sprints back from the nurses station and arrives half a second before the rest of the medical team. After a few poke and prods, Pete finally learns that, apparently, this happens a lot and that although it is very important and great that it happened, there is nothing that the doctors and nurses can do to make Patrick better or worse whether or not he is conscious or asleep. It's only a few days later that something substantial begins to happen.

‘Okay, this is it, I am going to open my eyes in 3, 2, 1, OPEN!’

 

nothing

 

‘FUCK’

 

mentally take a deep breath.

 

‘Okay, this is it, I am going to open my eyes in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, OPEN!’

 

‘FUCK, CLOSE, CLOSE!'

 

“Patrick? Rick? Baby, its Elisa,” he hears his wife almost whimper next to him.

He reluctantly opens his eyes to the blinding light that he initially decided to shy away from like a newly awakened vampire. After the first blurry angelic glowing figures he sees, he blinks for a minute and eventually comes to the usual blurry he usually is used to with his abysmal eyesight.

“Oh!” 

Patrick hears shuffling and then feels his glasses being placed on his head by a gentle hand that he knows is his Elisa.

Patrick smiles and finally dares to look into his wife’s eyes. He immediately wishes he didn't.


End file.
